The Science of Ufos [Hardcover]

William R. Alschuler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312262256 | ISBN-13: 978-0312262259 | Publication Date: February 22, 2001 | Edition: 1st

What if UFOs are real?

Where could they be from, and how could they have traveled here? What advanced technology must they possess to execute the fantastic maneuvers they are routinely reported to make?

Astronomer William R. Alshuler takes a fascinating look at the reported attributes of UFOs through the lens of known science and explains how they might be doing the weird and incredible things they are known to do.

Along the way, he examines the possibilities and problems of traveling faster than light, interdimensionally, and via teleportation, as well as the veracity of UFO reports, insights into potential alien motives, and alien biochemistry.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When it comes to UFOs, most scientists prefer to just say "no." Tackling the issue without damaging his credibility, astronomer William A. Alschuler wrote The Science of UFOs to explore how popular beliefs about aliens and spacecraft intersect with our current understanding of physics and biology. Though guaranteed to enrage extremists on both sides of the belief spectrum, he is careful to be fair to witness and investigator alike. The text is engaging, even fun, as Alschuler dives head-first into geek-out discussions of wormholes, antigravity effects, and alien DNA. He has this to say about Star Trek-style warp-drive ships:

A watcher in the ship's wake would likely see the sky around the ship waver like a desert mirage as the ship accelerated away. If it happened at night or in space, the stars in the sky might appear to draw in around the ship, and as the stars crowded together this area might for a time look like a bright ring of sky. As the ship became more distant, this luminous doughnut would shrink in radius.

Drawing plenty of analogies from popular science fiction, Alschuler explains his ideas clearly and forcefully. Though his conclusion--that we probably haven't been visited by extraterrestrials traveling in physical interstellar craft--is neither surprising nor especially satisfying, the process he uses to reach it is challenging, imaginative, and open-minded. These are good scientific values, well worth absorption by both the uncritical believers and the calcified skeptics of the world. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly

Have aliens visited Earth? Did the government conspire to cover up a UFO crash at Roswell, N.Mex.? Astronomer Alschuler (UFOs and Aliens)Awhile allowing for the possible existence of life elsewhere in our galaxyAremains skeptical that aliens have touched down on Earth. With a child's enthusiasm for the fantastic and a scientist's eye for detail, the author examines the science of alien technologies reported by eyewitnesses and featured in various media. Several reports, for example, suggest that aliens travel in silent, rapidly accelerating saucers. Applying the law of inertia, however, the author notes that extreme acceleration would exert a crushing pressure on alien passengers. In addition, since solid objects generate pressure waves as they move through a substance such as air, silent saucers are implausible. Other reports from abductees suggest that aliens can travel from the star Vega to Earth in a little over a day, an unlikely feat that Alschuler asserts would be possible only if the aliens had access to a tunnel through space (a highly unstable passage commonly known as a "worm hole") or the ability to bend space using a warp drive (which requires as much energy as the sun will radiate over its lifetime). Although Alschuler's analysis seems at times like an introductory physics text as it delves into the quantum mechanics and physics of prospective alien technologies, readers will appreciate his objective, fact-based analysis of a range of purported extraterrestrial phenomena. (Feb. 1) Forecast: Many Americans think that UFOs are piloted by aliens, and many of them believe in alien abductions. This vast potential readership will be enticed by this book's title, only to slam the volume down. However, scientifically inclined readers who, like Alschuler, are drawn to science fictionAfans of books like The Physics of Star TrekAare the perfect target readership for his evaluation of what is or is not possible in the physical world as we know it; if booksellers can appeal to them, this book should do respectably well.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (February 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312262256
• ISBN-13: 978-0312262259
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,283,264 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A debunker in sheep's clothing, April 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Science of Ufos (Hardcover)

The author, who has a background in astronomy and is a science professor, admits at the outset that he is a skeptic and is "extremely doubtful" that aliens have visited earth (although he purports to have an open mind). His message is directly out of the Gospel According to Carl Sagan -- i.e., scientists already understand 98% of the way that the universe works, and anything inconsistent with their current understanding has an infinitesimal chance of being real. When he confines himself to a discussion of the "hard science" of UFOs -- meaning the way that the typical behavior of UFOs fits with our current understanding of the laws of physics, which is "not very well" -- the book is readable and worthwhile in the same way that Fred Alan Wolf's books are readable and worthwhile. Throughout, however, there is the consistent theme that this poor fit between the behavior of UFOs and our understanding of physics inevitably means that UFOs aren't real. This is the Sagan Gospel -- UFOs can't be real because we, who can explain everything, can't explain them (and because they aren't anything like we would build and don't act they way we would act). This nearsighted approach fails to do justice to the sheer strangeness of the subject, and the author seems to be woefully uninformed about other paranormal phenomena and the way that UFOs relate to them. There is also a consistently snide and dismissive tone -- witnesses' motives are always suspect, eyewitness testimony can't be trusted, etc., etc. Again, the Gospel of Sagan. When the author moves away from hard science into brief discussions of topics such as the abduction phenomenon, the tone remains snide and dismissive and the discussions are too shallow to be worthwhile. What I really object to is the misleading nature of the book: The author takes to task those who "commercialize" the UFO phenomenon for profit, yet his own book misleading blares on the cover "An astronomer examines the technology of alien spacecraft, how they travel, and the aliens who pilot them!" (and on the back cover "Where could they come from, and how could they have traveled here? What advanced technology must they possess to execute the fantastic maneuvers they are routinely reported to make?") -- when his actual message is, "There ain't no such thing, folks." For a devotee of the Gospel According to Sagan, this book will fit nicely in your library. For everyone else, the book is of marginal value as a readable discussion of the challenge that UFOs pose to current scientific paradigms. Bear in mind, however, that the author is a debunker in sheep's clothing. (Some of the photographs are extremely interesting and are ones that I hadn't seen before -- I would've much preferred an in-depth discussion of THEM, but there is no discussion whatsoever.) Do yourself a favor and buy Richard Hall's "The UFO Evidence, Vol. 2," and see if the sheer weight of the evidence doesn't overwhelm everything this author has to say.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on scientific study of the phenomenon, March 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Science of Ufos (Hardcover)

One of a new breed of books along the lines of Peter Sturrock's "The UFO Engima" written by degreed Physics Ph.Ds at respectable institutions which approach the phenomenon scientifically without bias. Rather than forming an opinion one way or the other, like Sturrock he makes a clear-headed best effort attempt at fitting the available data from the various reports, whatever they may be, to the science that we know about today and where we currently believe that it might head. The author has the gift of Fred Alan Wolf to clearly communicate scientific concepts in a way for non-scientists to understand. Especially enlightening is the author's frankness and clear grasp on what is and isn't known yet in modern physics. For each of the reported things considered, the author makes an excellent attempt at extrapolating existing science as far as a practicing researcher can realistically go. In some cases the extrapolations clearly fall off a scientific cliff, so to speak, as he notes each time. In a few cases the extrapolations lead to results that are surprisingly plausible given our recent emerging understanding of membrane (string) theory and quantum effects such as the quantum entanglement of light. I highly recommend this book!

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The public shouldn't swallow such pumpkins..., September 25, 2003

By 

Another scientist's point of view (Canada. Province of Quebec) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Science of Ufos (Hardcover)

I wish I could return this book to recover my money, but unfortunately I have lost forever the time taken to read it. To people untrained in science he may seem convincing, but to me, as an electrical engineer with an excellent technical reputation, having worked in aerospace and robotics and having been trained in the nuclear field and possessing an excellent background in physics, his book rapidly got very dissapointing, and I only read it to the end hoping he would give the subject minimal credible coverage. He's a debunker, and a poor one at that if you apply any scrutiny to his arguments which are mostly a collection of cursory analyses, and on top of it in several places his hasty assumptions and/or conclusions are just plain wrong; I wish I had more than 1000 characters to demonstrate it in this review, but here's a sample: look up magnetohydrodynamics or MHD, and you'll have a possible explanation for UFO sightings where supersonic speed is involved without a sonic boom; by the way, MHD is not taken out of UFO folklore, it happens in Tokamak experiments and within our own Sun. The thought that came to mind most often as I read was that Alschuler's reasoning was amazingly similar to that famous so-called expert's who put his foot in his mouth a long time ago by saying that humans could not survive the speed of a locomotive. Take note that I'm not sold to the reality of UFO's, as I just despise as much hardcore UFO believers that won't accept a simple explanation when it's obvious. What really frustrated me was the misleading title and backcover reviews; that's why I wrote this review. Don't even expect a good scientific crop from that book; instead, read about wormholes, warp theory and zero point energy elsewhere, for the little interesting content that the book sporadically presented.